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Full-Text Articles in Law
Are Unions A Constitutional Anomaly?, Cynthia Estlund
Are Unions A Constitutional Anomaly?, Cynthia Estlund
Michigan Law Review
This term in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Ass’n, the Supreme Court will consider whether ordinary public employees may constitutionally be required to pay an “agency fee,” as a condition of employment, to the union that represents them in collective bargaining. The Court established the terms of engagement in the 2014 decision Harris v. Quinn, which struck down an agency fee on narrower grounds while describing the current doctrine approving agency fees, blessed many times by the Court itself, as an “anomaly.” This Article asks whether labor unions are themselves anomalies in our legal system, particularly in their constitutional entitlements. Its …
Policeman, Citizen, Or Both? A Civilian Analogue Exception To Garcetti V. Ceballos, Caroline A. Flynn
Policeman, Citizen, Or Both? A Civilian Analogue Exception To Garcetti V. Ceballos, Caroline A. Flynn
Michigan Law Review
The First Amendment prohibits the government from leveraging its employment relationship with a public employee in order to silence the employee's speech. But the Supreme Court dramatically curtailed this right in Garcetti v. Ceballos by installing a categorical bar: if the public employee spoke "pursuant to her official duties," her First Amendment retaliation claim cannot proceed. Garcetti requires the employee to show that she was speaking entirely "as a citizen" and not at all "as an employee." But this is a false dichotomy - especially because the value of the employee's speech to the public is no less if she …
Statutory And Common Law Considerations In Defining The Tort Liability Of Public Employee Unions To Private Citizens For Damages Inflicted By Illegal Strikes, Michigan Law Review
Statutory And Common Law Considerations In Defining The Tort Liability Of Public Employee Unions To Private Citizens For Damages Inflicted By Illegal Strikes, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that in the absence of any clear indication that the legislature intended to bar such suits, courts should uphold private actions whenever plaintiffs can establish the elements of a common-law tort. Part I briefly outlines the various theories supporting the view that public sector collective bargaining statutes preempt private actions. The analysis is necessarily general, but Part I concludes that in most cases neither the language and structure of the applicable statute nor an analogy to federal labor law will resolve the preemption question. Part II, therefore, looks to the policies that animate no-strike provisions and argues …
Labor Relations Law In The Public Sector, Arvid Anderson
Labor Relations Law In The Public Sector, Arvid Anderson
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Labor Relations Law in the Public Sector by Russell A. Smith, Harry T. Edwards, and R. Theodore Clark, Jr.
Collective Bargaining For Public Employees And The Prevention Of Strikes In The Public Sector, Michigan Law Review
Collective Bargaining For Public Employees And The Prevention Of Strikes In The Public Sector, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
In recent years, a number of states have enacted legislation providing collective bargaining rights for public employees. Almost invariably these statutes have reaffirmed the traditional prohibition against strikes by government workers. But the strike-or the threat of a strike-has been a key economic weapon for employees in the private sector, and some observers contend that without that weapon the new collective bargaining rights for public employees are illusory.
Strikes And Impasse Resolution In Public Employment, Arvid Anderson
Strikes And Impasse Resolution In Public Employment, Arvid Anderson
Michigan Law Review
Experience indicates that in most instances the right to strike is not an essential part of the public employment collective bargaining process.18 Thus, the crucial issue is not really whether strikes should be permitted or prohibited in the public sector, but whether the collective bargaining process itself can be made so effective absent the right to strike that the need for work stoppages will be obviated. It is my conclusion that certain proven impasse resolution procedures--mediation, fact-finding, and in some cases, even arbitration--can be substituted for the strike weapon in public employment without substantial loss in the effectiveness of collective …
State And Local Advisory Reports On Public Employment Labor Legislation: A Comparative Analysis, Russell A. Smith
State And Local Advisory Reports On Public Employment Labor Legislation: A Comparative Analysis, Russell A. Smith
Michigan Law Review
The reports surveyed in this Article will be designated by reference to the state or other governmental unit with which each is associated. The reports are, in chronological order, the Connecticut Report of February 1965, the Minnesota Report of March 1965, the Rhode Island Report of February 1966, the New York ("Taylor Committee") Report of March 1966, the Michigan Report of February 1967, the Illinois Report of March 1967, the New Jersey Report of January 1968, the Pennsylvania Report of June 1968, and the Los Angeles County Report of July 1968. The "findings" made by the National Governors' Conference Task …
Strikes And Public Employment, Theodore W. Kheel
Strikes And Public Employment, Theodore W. Kheel
Michigan Law Review
In public employment there has been an increasing resort to strikes in all parts of the nation by employees previously immune--teachers, policemen, firemen, welfare workers, garbage collectors, hospital attendants, doctors, nurses, and zoo keepers. The strike fever is contagious, and leapfrogging demands and multiplying disputes leave government hesitant, defensive, and distracted from the unresolved problems of our urban crisis. The basic question-and the great challenge-is how to prevent strikes that imperil the public interest while still providing millions of public employees with the opportunity to participate in the process of determining the conditions of their work, an opportunity not only …
Collective Bargaining In The Public Service Of Canada: Bold Experiment Or Act Of Folly?, H. W. Arthurs
Collective Bargaining In The Public Service Of Canada: Bold Experiment Or Act Of Folly?, H. W. Arthurs
Michigan Law Review
This brief background sketch of the Canadian labor relations scene suffices to indicate that several important impediments to the introduction of a full-fledged system of public service collective bargaining which exist in the United States have no counterpart north of the border. Particularly at the practical level, there were no insuperable hurdles to the enactment of the 1967 Canadian federal law. To understand how and why the new federal statute came to be enacted within this reasonably hospitable environment, it is important to trace the course of employment relations in the Canadian Public Service.
The Coming Revolution In Public School Management, Donald H. Wollett
The Coming Revolution In Public School Management, Donald H. Wollett
Michigan Law Review
Dr. James Conant has commented on ·what he views as "concurrent educational revolutions"-changes in methods of instruction, in curriculum emphasis, and in public school financing-which portend radical revision in the methods of determining educational policy. However, thus far neither Dr. Conant nor any other observer of similar stature has addressed himself seriously to a fourth educational revolution-in-the-making: the direct involvement of teachers, through structured collective negotiations, in the management of public elementary and secondary school systems. This Article will focus on that coming revolution.
The Evolution Of A Collective Bargaining Relationship In Public Education: New York City's Changing Seven-Year History, Ida Klaus
Michigan Law Review
The bargaining relationship between the New York City Board of Education and its teachers had its roots in the social forces of the mid-fifties and its formal origins in the events of the early sixties. The relationship came about without benefit of law or executive policy. No law permitting public employees to bargain collectively was in effect anywhere in those years, and Mayor Wagner's 1958 Executive Order-the culmination of three years of study and public inquiry-did not apply to teachers. Instead, the impetus came directly from the persistent and increasingly powerful drive of the teachers themselves. They demanded a substantial …
Collective Bargaining In Higher Education, Ralph S. Brown Jr.
Collective Bargaining In Higher Education, Ralph S. Brown Jr.
Michigan Law Review
Clearly, there are many institutions where the model of shared authority has been attained; there are many more where it is attainable; and, unfortunately, there are many where it is not foreseeable. It is the first thesis of this Article that the advantages of an internal framework of representation make it worthwhile to strive for its realization.
Constraints On Local Governments In Public Employee Bargaining, Charles M. Rehmus
Constraints On Local Governments In Public Employee Bargaining, Charles M. Rehmus
Michigan Law Review
It is to the basic financial and administrative constraints upon the powers of local governing units that this Article is primarily directed. The examples used are taken largely from Michigan experience and Michigan law. The same limitations upon the financial and administrative powers of local government, however, exist in almost all other states. The Michigan experience with public administration and public employee bargaining should provide both a warning and a guide to other states as they cope with the so-called public employee revolution.
The Appropriate Unit Question In The Public Service: The Problem Of Proliferation, Eli Rock
The Appropriate Unit Question In The Public Service: The Problem Of Proliferation, Eli Rock
Michigan Law Review
The purpose of this Article is to focus on certain distinguishing aspects of both the problem and the experience in the public sector, and to discuss a possible approach or philosophy for the future. The primary concern here is undue proliferation of units among the large pool of blue-collar and white-collar employees in the public service. No attempt will be made to deal with special groups such as policemen and firemen, in which the unit question is less difficult. Nor will I discuss the unique problems of supervisors and professional employees, such as teachers, which are sufficiently important and complex …
Constitutional Law--Commerce Clause--1966 Amendments To Fair Labor Standards Act Extending Coverage To Employees In State-Operated Schools, Hospitals, And Related Institutions Held Constitutional--Maryland V. Wirtz, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
In 1966, Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and for the first time extended the coverage of the minimum wage and overtime provisions to employees in state-operated schools, hospitals, and related institutions. The State of Maryland, joined by twenty-seven other states, brought an action to enjoin enforcement of the amendments insofar as they applied to these state-operated facilities and sought a declaratory judgment ruling the amendments unconstitutional. The states asserted that the amendments were unconstitutional in two respects. First, they contended that the "enterprise" concept of FLSA coverage, which extended the Act to cover all employees of an …